The Sunday News
OVER 1 000 qualified nurses who are hoping to get employment in Government health institutions will have to wait a little longer as the Health Services Board is yet to get clearance from Treasury to start recruiting, eight months after Government lifted the ban on recruitment of health personnel.
Government lifted the ban on recruitment of nurses in August last year, with 630 posts declared vacant in the health sector.
The Zimbabwe Nurses Association (Zina) recently came out in media saying modalities were being worked on that would see the unemployed nurses being absorbed.
However, the Health Services Board told Sunday News that nothing had changed regarding filling of the posts that were declared vacant, as Treasury was yet to release funds for the exercise.
About 2 200 qualified nurses are unemployed and the lifting of the recruitment ban would take the figure down to around 1 500.
The figure of unemployed qualified nurses excludes those that graduated last month as they are yet to be fed into the Health Services Board database.
Health Services Board public relations executive Mr Nyasha Maravanyika said the board would continue replacing nurses who would have resigned, retired, died or might have been dismissed from work for various reasons.
He said recruitment of nurses to fill the 630 posts that were declared vacant would start as soon as funds were made available.
“Nothing has changed. We are still waiting for Treasury’s concurrence for us to start filling those posts. Right now I cannot give a specific time as to when we can expect to start the exercise because all that is determined by the availability of funds.
“So far we have 2 185 qualified nurses who are unemployed, excluding the last group that graduated last month. We have been working on replacement of nurses who would have left the service for various reasons, but the figure that we have recruited so far since last year is insignificant. But the process of replacement is ongoing and we will continue doing so until we get clearance from Treasury to fill those vacant posts,” he said.
Mr Maravanyika explained that the 630 posts that were unfrozen were not necessarily for nurses only but included promotions and other health staff in other departments in the health sector who will also be absorbed into the system.
“When those things are being said it would appear as if the unfrozen posts are for nurses. The posts were unfrozen for the entire health sector which covers environmental health workers, nutritionists, radiologists and others. So the number of nurses to be recruited might actually be less than 630 nurses,” he said.
The Health Services Board has also been on record decrying delays by Treasury to approve the filling of vacant posts in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, a situation the board said had resulted in severe shortages of critical staff in Government health institutions.
There also have been calls from the board on Government to review the country’s nurses establishment and align it with the growing national population as well as the increasing need for health services in the country.
The board argues that there is possibility that over the past 35 years the country’s population as well as the number of health institutions might have outgrown the present nurses establishment, hence the need to review it. The country’s nurses establishment was last reviewed in 1983.
Delays by the Health Services Board to fill the 630 posts has created anxiety among nursing graduates who were hoping to be employed.
